


Magnetise Me

by agib



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Ankle Cuffs, BAMF Tony Stark, Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Peter Parker Whump, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Restraints, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:05:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agib/pseuds/agib
Summary: Peter wakes up in a cell, his cuffs are useless until he decides to run (also, tanks aren't fun).





	Magnetise Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shoyzz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shoyzz/gifts).



> Ah! I wrote this in a day, then edited it the next, and drew concept art and now I'm sleep deprived :)
> 
> I really hope you all like it and special shout out to Shoyzz who I wrote this for <3
> 
> Please leave a comment if you wanted to say anything or message me on tumblr, I'd love to get random prompts or ideas or just if anyone wants to ask questions or literally just say hi! (Tumblr is Agib-2002)
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> <3

Peter woke abruptly. 

 

His head snapped up and he regretted the jerky movement almost immediately as his skull rejected the action and began to throb horribly. With dry lips and a mouth that tasted like cotton wool, he tried his best not to think about the pounding inside his skull. He was definitely concussed, but he desperately hoped the nausea which bubbled up in his stomach didn’t get any worse, or he would lose the last thing he ate. He kept his head still, leaning against the wall behind him as he slowly, carefully, surveyed his surroundings.

 

It was a small room, about the size of an elevator, and completely empty apart from him, a seemingly reinforced metal door, and a small, dingy light bulb that illuminated the room poorly. The bulb swayed slightly in the air, making the shadows dance across the walls like figures, he shuddered visibly as his unease grew.

 

Once the nausea had subsided to a manageable amount, Peter raised his arms to push himself up, so he can better inspect the door. When he lifted his hands, however, they felt oddly heavy, but he doesn’t pay much attention as he assumed it was merely a side effect of the concussion, he was unfortunately familiar with those. He was still sluggish, everything felt extra weighty, so he didn’t think twice about the unusual weightiness of his hands, but that was before he saw the two, thick bracelets that were encircling his wrists. 

 

They were metal, much like the door, a dark silvery grey colour which, although looked sleek, didn’t hide the weight of them. If they were supposed to be cuffs, they weren’t doing their job very well, seeing as they weren’t even connecting his hands together. He could move his arms freely without any trouble, they could have almost been a piece of jewellery with how little they actually effected his ability to move.

 

Peter scoffed silently and pulled himself into a standing position. He tapped a knuckle along the wall curiously, to check if it was hollow enough to punch through, none of it seemed to be. When he banged on the door to do the same, the sound echoed and made him wince as it bounced around his small cell. He tried the handle next, it wouldn’t budge, if he pulled at it any harder he would have ripped it completely off the wall then he would be stuck in the small room until someone broke the door down, but judging by the strength of the metal, he doubted anyone could.

 

_Iron Man’s repulsors could._

 

He cut that train of thought down as soon as he caught it, because he wasn’t in any immediate danger, Tony probably knew he was missing, sure, it was Tuesday, their lab day. But no matter how much Peter wished he had just called Happy instead of trying to walk to the subway on his own, he couldn’t rely on anybody else to get him out of wherever he was, it was his job for now.

 

The teen experimentally thumped the centre of the door with an open-palmed hit, to see how reinforced it really was. Considering the amount of force, he used, it wasn’t surprising when he had to bite his tongue and contain the small grunt of pain as his hand stung with the ache of unforgiving metal. The noise made the pounding in his head increase, and he distantly hoped the concussion hadn’t bruised or broken anything important.

 

“Right, so pretty enforced then…” he muttered to himself as he rubbed his palm and glared at the metal accusingly.

 

Peter sighed loudly, dramatically, wondering if there were any hidden security cameras watching him as he slid back down the wall and stared at the door less than patiently.

 

\----

 

He had been sitting on the floor for what must have been at least forty minutes, but his back was already sore, and his legs cramped from keeping still in one place for too long. He stood and groaned as he felt a few bones clicking. That would normally be the point at which he made an old person joke and Tony would roll his eyes fondly as Peter complained without real heat.

 

“ _I’m telling you Mr. Stark! My ankles go crazy when I walk down stairs, honestly it sounds like I’m tap dancing… but with bones clicking,” Tony looked at him with a lopsided smirk. The edge of his lips curled upward as he shook his head and rolled his eyes as always._

_“Bone clicking tap dancing, that’s what you’re going for, huh kid?” Peter spun around in his lab chair and used the desk to roll forward until he was sat in Tony’s view line._

_“Watch this,” he lifts his foot in demonstration, playing it up a bit, to Tony’s amusement. “Ready?” He rolls his foot in a small circle and even without advanced senses, Tony can hear the small click, clack of Peter’s ankle._

_“Wow kiddo, you’re older than me already,” he joked, earning himself an eye roll from the teen._

_“Clickity Clackity, my ankle’s got poor structural integrity!” Tony huffed a laugh and Peter smiled._

 

Peter ran his hand along the wall of the cell and sighed again, louder this time. He hummed idly and tapped his fingers against the bracelets distractedly. The ever-present need to be doing _something_ poked through his stream of consciousness.

 

There was another three minutes of silence before his hearing picked up the sound of footsteps and his back straightened as he stood once more. He blew a huff of air through his nose and clenched his fists together, mentally sizing up the men in his head from memory before they even reached the door.

 

He wasn’t going to lie around and wait like a sitting duck, he was going to fight until he got out, because he’d much rather be at the lab right now, tinkering mindlessly with his mentor.

 

A green light that he hadn’t noticed before flickered on and there was a metallic bang as he presumed somebody unlocked the door from the outside. The handle moved, and he jumped back quickly as the three men pushed it open and walked into the space.

 

They were all medium build, not particularly muscular but far from lean. They were all average height, the man on the end with dark blonde hair was taller than the other two. Peter knew he could take them normally, but with the room tilting if he moved too quickly, the effects of the concussion still lingering, he figured running was a safer bet then taking on three grown men on his own.

 

“Hey guys, I’m sure you’re all fashion experts but I don’t really agree with these,” he lifts his arms up and waved his hands around to demonstrate the bracelets. “So, if you wouldn’t mind just popping these off I bet we can ha -”

 

“Yeah sure, we’ll get right on that,” one of the shorter men snorts sarcastically while the other two fix Peter with a glare that looks as though they didn’t appreciate his attempts to forcefully jam humour into the situation.

 

“Awesome man, you mind hurrying up, I have places to be,” he eyed them all up, and as he remembered, none of them were particularly bulky, but they were currently blocking the open doorway, which Peter didn’t like.

 

“How ‘bout I just go ahead and tighten those for you, sound good?” The man with blonde hair steps forward and Peter grits his teeth, telling himself not to move until the man was far enough away from the door.

 

“Perfect,” he said bitterly, readying himself as the taller man came to a stop before him. He reached an arm out, stretching his fingers towards the cuffs, and Peter seized the moment and ran.

 

He bolted forward, slamming his shoulder into the man’s and using the speed he gained to jump between the two others who weren’t blocking the door anymore. One of their fingers jerked out and caught his hoodie, but he had already amounted too much speed, and tore past them easily.

 

He grinned proudly as he leapt past them and darted through the doorway with ease. He whooped happily as he ran, but the noise was quickly overshadowed by a loud buzzing that began abruptly and stung his sensitive hearing.

 

For a moment, nothing happened, and Peter continued to run, but suddenly his feet caught on something and he yelped as he went down and hit the floor, _hard._

 

His hands barely catch him, and he immediately attempted to tug himself back to his feet, but he slipped again, and his chest hit the floor. He sucked in the air that his first fall managed to knock from his lungs, and hurriedly turned where he was sprawled on the floor to see the two men walking out from his cell with the third rubbing his shoulder and looking spiteful.

 

The boy looked down to see what it was that tripped him, or to work out whether he could use it as a weapon, but nothing is on the floor, and he doesn’t understand what happened for a moment. He tries to lift his feet to see if whatever he tripped over was underneath him, but when he does, both legs move together.

 

Peter’s eyes widen as he realises what had happened. 

 

Secured around his ankles, are the exact same cuffs that he had on his wrists, although now, both were pressed against each other, forcing his legs together.

 

“What the hell…” he murmured confusedly as his multiple attempts to tear his ankles back apart offered no results. The men were above him by then, he hadn’t gotten that far from the cell door, maybe several yards, at most, down one hallway but not the second, which must have led to the door out.

 

Peter was on the floor, his ankles somehow trapped together even as he began to pull himself away from the men, his hands coming behind him to use the floor and drag himself backward as his feet kicked uselessly. He hadn’t noticed how heavy they were until he continued to try and kick out at the men who were leering over him, laughing and jeering as he struggled to skitter as far from them as possible. With his bound ankles and his body effectively stuck on the ground, they were having no trouble keeping up with him as he crawled.

 

“Get away from me! Back off - don’t!” His voice cracked in fear as one of the men reached down to flick his ankle cuffs teasingly, grinning as the teen made a fruitless attempt to kick at him with two legs pinned together.

 

“Not so sarcastic now, are we?” Peter scowls as angrily as he can, ignoring the way he can hear Tony’s voice in his head.

 

_“Yeah, no offence kid, but I feel like I’m being threatened by a puppy, you should work on that.”_

_“I am threatening Mr. Stark, look!” He forced his face into a snarl and Tony stared at him for a moment before his eyes soften and he laughs._

_“Yeah, no Pete, that’s uh - yeah that’s not working. You’re a literal cinnamon roll and couldn’t scare me if you tried.” Peter arched an eyebrow at him and grinned._

_“Is that a challenge?” Tony rolled his eyes fondly and pushed him away lightly._

_“Oh please,” he laughed, ignoring the weird faces Peter pulled as he tried to figure out how to look frightening._

 

He scowled at the men and growled lowly, feeling like a trapped animal as they circled him and began to poke and prod at his legs, as if proud of their own mechanisms.

 

“Love the way those work Sean,” one of them addresses the man who stood behind Peter before directing his words to the teen. “How’s it feel to be overpowered by a little magnet, huh?” Peter bared his teeth and continued to try and pull himself away with his hands. “Ah, ah, ah. Wouldn’t want you to crab crawl your way out of here, Spider-Man.”

 

Peter snarled when he felt Sean squeezing his calf as they muttered something about surgically enhancing the tendons. The entire situation suddenly felt too real for him when he begins to catch parts of what the three men are whispering to each other as they jabbed at various parts of his body. 

 

“We could surgically remove a couple ribs and put in metal disks just under the muscles,” someone laid an open hand over his shirt, above where his bottom ribs were, he wriggled away from the touch.

 

“There’s no point, I think we should just stick to the spinal surgery, replace the vertebrae with a metal rod for flexibility.” A finger dragged up along the length of his spine and the breath caught in his throat as the hand ran up to the back of his neck and squeezed.

 

He had felt that touch before, Tony often laid a reassuring hand behind his neck and squeezed gently to calm him during sensory overload migraines. But this felt so much different, the man’s touch was threatening, like he was being held in place.

 

“I think someone’s scared,” the man sang the words like a child’s tune and it made Peter shiver, but he set his shoulders in a stiff line and sat straighter, raising his fists up, as if he could defend himself from the floor, without his legs, against three armed men. “Oh, someone’s a bit fired up,” the man sneered through a patronising smirk.

 

“Take the cuffs off and I’ll show you how fired up I can get,” he bit back, his eyebrows lowered. They simply laughed at him as if he weren’t any more threatening than a fly, they continued jabbing fingers into him and he continued to squirm away from the contact each time.

 

“We could put metal plates in the soles of his feet, so he can run longer distances and kick harder.” The shortest man, Sean, stepped around behind him and lifted his ankle. Peter moved to swipe at him but raising one ankle pulled the other along with it and soon enough he was teetering on only his kneecaps. The man noticed his lack of balance and grinned as he tugged Peter’s ankles. 

 

He fell forward, his hands catching him before his face hit the floor. Hurriedly, he began to push himself back up to his knees with his hands.

 

“I don’t think he needs those right now,” the first man muttered to himself as he reached into his pocket and tapped something on the screen of his phone.

 

The buzzing started up, louder this time, and then Peter cried out in pain as his hands slammed together and he drops the rest of the way to the floor, his wrists pin underneath his chest and his forehead smacked into the tile harshly. The boy’s vision fizzes for a moment and he vaguely realised that the noise he heard had come from him as he moaned in pain.

 

Peter felt a hand in his hair and suddenly he was being pulled up from the floor and back onto his knees. The room span and he tipped backwards, his back hit the floor and his eyes squeezed shut as everything swirled together. The nauseous feeling flared back up and he had to forcefully hold back the urge to throw up.

 

“Wakey, wakey Spider boy.” Fingers started to dig into his shoulders and he jolted as he lurched back into high awareness. He needed to get onto his stomach and push himself up onto his knees, so he could at least try to stand and defend himself again.

 

“Argh! Ah, ah – wait – wait, agh…” he tried to roll himself over but one of the men had his hand on the ankle cuffs and wouldn’t let him flip back onto his stomach. “What is this?!” He cried, struggling to twist his hands so the cuffs broke apart. He was using all his strength, but they didn’t even budge, which was the most worrying thing.

 

“They’re magnetised cuffs,” the man holding his phone looks self-satisfied as he poked another button. “They’re quite effective, and very controlled, see?” The buzz started up and Peter felt a heavy force pulling his wrists down and his ankles up. 

 

“Aagh! Stop!” His body folded in half as his wrist cuffs latched onto his ankle cuffs and his knees were forced into his own stomach, making him gasp for air. “Turn it off – turn them off!” He yelled desperately. He hated how vulnerable he was in the position, there was no way he could block any potential blows while both his arms and legs were stuck together, his entre backside and head were open to attack and he desperately tried to fight against the magnets.

 

The men only watched him with fascination as he struggled to pull the cuffs apart while they stood over him and snickered cruelly.

 

“I think it’s time to head back to your cell,” finally the magnetisation is turned off and his wrists separated from his ankles.

 

“Oh, give it a rest Cody, have some fun,” Sean shoved him backward as he tried to get onto his knees again. “We don’t have to take him back just yet,” Peter tries to back away from him. “Just because you’re going back to the cell doesn’t mean we can’t make it enjoyable for ourselves.” Peter swallowed and tried to push himself away as the men approached him again.

 

“Drag ‘em, I’m not turning off the cuffs so he can try to run again.” One of the men, who must have been Cody, grabbed his wrists in both hands and yanked him toward the cell. Peter cried out as his shoulders were wrenched harshly, but the man started dragging him across the floor and he couldn’t find any leverage to get himself up on his feet.

 

“Let me go!” He shrieked as Sean kicked his leg for yelling out, but Cody only grunted and gripped his wrists tighter as his slow walk picked up to a quicker pace.

 

Peter took a breath and waited until he could feel the man adjusting his grip. He pulls his hands into his chest as abruptly as possible, he slipped out of the man’s grasp and hit the floor with a thud. The three turned to him angrily and his first reaction was to twist his legs in front of him and kick out. His feet connected with one of their legs and they stumbled to the floor as the other two jumped on Peter.

 

He screamed as one of their knee’s slammed into his shoulder and he heard something pop. The sickening noise of his shoulder sliding out of its socket was nothing compared to the burst of pain that flared up almost immediately after the sound.

 

“Please stop! You’re hurting me, get off!” Hot tears prickled in his eyes as he went limp in the men’s grip, they streamed down his face as someone yanked his wrists forward, wrenching his dislocated shoulder even further out of place. “Stop! Ah, uhggh s – s – stop!” He began to feel lightheaded as the pain flooded through him entirely, he was a deadweight as the men twisted him around, so they could continue dragging him. His eyes rolled into the back of his head momentarily, but his body wouldn’t let him pass out.

 

The men must have had a small understanding of when someone was done, because they pulled him by his ankles the rest of the walk down to the cell. Peter was completely and utterly limp as they tugged him across the floor, he only moved as the man he kicked minutes before took the opportunity to step on his bad shoulder and hiss words that even Tony wouldn’t have approved of.

 

“Can you get off his arm, I’m doing all the heavy lifting getting him back to the cell, you’re in the way.” Peter gasped as the man stepped off his shoulder, Cody began to drag him again and his wrists trailed behind his head, the dislocated shoulder burnt in agony as he stayed slack and unmoving. The men didn’t seem to care as they yanked him past walls, his cheek brushed against a corner and when he was dragged forwards roughly, the left side of his face was scraped up against it, he whimpered as it reopened his forehead wound.

 

“What’s the plan then?” Peter’s head was too foggy to focus on what the words meant, he just stayed lax as they hauled him back through the doorway and into the cell.

 

“I wanna know more about this sticking to stuff, you two go set up the temp plates and I’ll sort him out.” He was groggy and momentarily lost as someone propped him up against a wall, his head dropped to his chest and he blinked rapidly when another hand tilted his face back up. There were footsteps and the clanging of his door shutting, but he still wasn’t alone, there was someone sitting in front of him and Peter tried so hard not to focus on the shooting pains that ran through his arm. “Stay still or I’ll mess up,” he looked down to see the man reaching for his dislocated shoulder and he shook his head while his mouth caught up to him.

 

“No! No, don’t – don’t touch it. Leave it alone!” There wasn’t anything he could have done; his back was pressed against a wall and the man had him caged in as he laid two hands over the socket. “Please don’t, please,” he begged as one of Cody’s hands pushed while the other shoved back and in, there was another nauseating sound as the bone popped back into the socket. 

 

He screamed.

 

\----

 

Once the initial flaming agony had dispersed, the shoulder felt more normal, but Peter was still as gentle as he could have been with it, just in case it decided to come back out of its socket again.

 

He was sat on a chair, there were two appliances in front of him, one looked like a hot plate while the other looked modified. The men had forced his hands down onto both, then changed the cuff settings so they weren’t magnetised together, instead, they stuck to the hot-plate looking appliances under his hand.

 

“Stick to it.” One of the men demanded, his voice gruff and threatening as he joined the other two who were standing across the table arguing over something he couldn’t care less about. “Just pick a setting and be done with it, make sure its not high enough to disfigure him,” Peter’s head whipped up to the men and the small box they were playing with.

 

“Wh – what?” None of them turned to face him, they were too busy flipping a switch and turning a knob up. A small red light lit up on the plate under his left hand, and the right one had a small blue one. “What is this?” One of the men met his eye and he grinned.

 

“Testing out your ability to stick to stuff. We were curious to see how that would hold up against extreme conditions.”

 

For about thirty seconds, Peter denied it. He was making it all up in his head, right? There was no way they were doing this…

 

After a minute, he couldn’t lie to himself anymore, the left plate felt warmer than before and the right plate seemed to be doing the exact opposite.

 

After another minute, the left plate was beginning to hurt, and his right hand was just turning tingly and numb.

 

“It’s taking awhile to reach temperature, why couldn’t we have just used a blowtorch?” Peter began to squirm uncomfortably in his seat as his left hand began to burn.

 

“Because a blowtorch would have melted his skin off before we worked out what was the max he could stick to was.” His right hand was freezing, it felt like little needles jabbing into him all over the surface of his palm and fingers.

 

His brain began to mix up the signals and everything just felt like it was burning, he thought he could smell something disgusting and he prayed it wasn’t charred flesh. He took rapid breaths and tried to dislodge the cuffs, but it was pointless, whatever magnet they were using was stronger than him at full strength.

 

After five minutes, he was screaming again.

 

\----

 

“You want it to be over?! Then answer us!” Peter slammed his head back into the chair and howled in pain. “You were done about nine degrees ago, so answer us, how do you stick?!”

 

The teen screamed, and it broke on a sob. “E – electrostatic f – force… ahhhh! Turn them o – o – off!” The three men exchanged glances, but Peter was too busy shaking his head, as if to shake away the pain, to notice. “Please!” He pleaded weakly.

 

“I think that sounds fake Rick, turn them up for me.” He screamed even louder.

 

“It’s not fake!” Sean pressed down on his right hand and he bit his lip so hard a tangy metallic taste flooded in his mouth. “I can enhance the flux of inter-atomic attractive forces a – and increase the coefficient friction between me and a – another surface, I – it isn’t fake!”

 

“Congratulations, you just made up at least eight words in that sentence, turn it up Rick,” the man at the dial, Rick, twisted it to the side and it took about ten seconds to heat up so much that Peter could swear he heard his own skin sizzling.

 

He arched his back and wailed as the temperatures increased for one hand and decreased even further for the other. His sticking ability had stopped working minutes ago, and now the only thing keeping his hands on the plates were the cuffs, but nothing kept the plates to the table. He kicked his leg up and it splintered the table from the impact, he swung his arms and his left hand hit the wall, shattering the plate into pieces while the actual element flew across the room and dented a door.

 

Peter screamed when he crashed his right hand onto the ground, his nails were purple and blue from the cold. He turned to the three men, Rick, Sean and Cody. The chair and table were in pieces strewn across the floor and he stepped over it all and began to run for them.

 

“Rick hit the button!”

 

Peter was so close, but there was the horrible buzzing again and his feet snapped together along with his wrists. He was running when the magnets turned back on, so when he went down his body crashed into the floor brutally.

 

All the air was knocked out of his lungs and he rolled a few times before one of the men pressed down on his chest with their shoe. His hands were throbbing like nothing he’d ever felt, falling onto his shoulder had hurt, but luckily it still seemed to be in its socket. His head pounded, and it felt like someone was hammering his skull with a crowbar as blackness ate over his vision like a passing cloud.

 

“Mark that endurance test down as a success,” he heard as his entire world was consumed by the darkness.

 

\----

 

“Hey boss, does the kid have decathlon practice afterschool on Tuesdays, or did I just drive all the way out here for nothing?” Tony waved his hand and the music shut off as he answered Happy.

 

“Nope, just lab day, tell him to hurry up,” he flicked a piece of wire away from his workspace and pulled off his safety glasses.

 

“I would’ve by now, trust me, the school’s empty and I’ve been parked for almost over an hour now.” He heard the noise of Happy’s fingers drumming on the wheel of the car, “look, he’s not the most punctual kid, but he’s never been this late befo –”

 

“All good Hap, thanks for checking in, I got his phone tracker right here, I’ll go grab him.” He heard a slightly annoyed sigh before the man huffed a goodbye and the call clicked off. He stared at the dot on his screen and loaded up the location into his suit. “Whatcha up to kiddo?” He asked quietly as the suit melded over him.

 

The flight was prompt, and he landed in a back alley which smelled like expired takeout, there was a dumpster in one corner and what looked like an old cardboard box that a refrigerator had once been housed in. Tony was confused for a moment, but that was only until he saw Peter’s bag strap peeking out from underneath the dumpster. 

 

Someone had made a poor attempt to hide it.

 

It was smeared with grime and old pieces of gum that made Tony wrinkle his nose in disgust, the bag was unzipped, and he could see Peter’s phone inside, the screen turned on. He frowned and pulled it out, the display was blinking, there was a low battery warning but past that, he could see the voice memos still open, and one had been left recording…

 

\----

 

When Peter peeled his eyes open, the first thing he noticed was the odd angle his body was tilted at. Two of the men were holding him up off the ground by his underarms, his legs were being pushed upward by the third man and he instinctually panicked.

 

He snapped his neck around to see where they were taking him.

 

It was a glass tank; the top was open, and he was about to be dropped inside. His legs were pushed over the lip of the tank already, but he shot his arms out and gripped the edge tightly. The men looked unimpressed that he hadn’t stayed unconscious for long enough, and they began pushing at his arms. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and used all of his strength to stay dangling over the edge.

 

“Rick, get the mask.” Peter couldn’t lift his arms up to defend himself when the man, gripped the front of his shirt and hauled him upward, leaving his feet to flail uselessly above the tank. He choked on a gasp and his fingers desperately slapped at the hands holding him in the air. There was something Rick’s hand and the teen tried to struggle, but his head was swimming and the room was swinging in every direction and he was about to pass out again.

 

Rick was holding a mask, he didn’t hesitate before he shoved it against Peter’s face roughly and began to pull the straps over and around his head. His wails and cries for help were muffled almost immediately and it gave the horrible impression that he was already underwater. 

 

When Rick had the mask on and secured tightly to the boy’s head, he dropped him in disgust, as if he were something unsavoury stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

 

Peter’s head hit the glass on the way down and was passed out before he even hit the bottom of the tank.

 

\----

 

When Peter woke, the memory of falling was fuzzy at best, he looked around and took in where exactly he was, it helped refresh his awareness.

 

He was in a long tube, just taller than his height and not even wide enough for him to bend his elbows outward. He hit a fist to the barrier and it hurt his hand when he used too much of his strength. When he looked around the room outside of the glass tank he immediately saw Rick and the two shorter men pouring water into a box just beside the tank. Cody and Sean were sweaty, and by the looks of how lazily they moved, they had been going for a long time.

 

Rick tapped the glass and smiled as Peter scrambled away, the back of his head banged against the glass when he moved back too far. The man said something, but the teen could barely hear the words, Rick frowned before shouting louder.

 

“Having fun in there, boy?” Peter shrunk back against the glass and tried not to feel like a caged animal as the other two men came around to circle where he was curled up at the bottom of the tube. They pounded on the glass and the sound reverberated around the small space painfully, he attempted to hold a brave face for a few seconds before he pulled his hands up over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

 

“I’ve heard spiders look pathetic when they drown”

 

“You ever learn to swim Spider boy?”

 

“We should just seal the water way and leave you to suffocate without any air.”

 

“Take a big breath, you’re gonna need it.”

 

Peter flinched every time their threats were interrupted by fists slamming against the glass, he whimpered and tried to get his breathing under control, it wouldn’t do him any good to have a panic attack if they did fill the tank.

 

Eventually they grew bored of him and stepped away, circling around the box instead. One of them turned a handle and Peter yelped as he felt a powerful jet of water spraying his backside. The force of the stream pushed him forward and the side of his head hit the glass hard enough for him to pass out, yet again.

 

\----

 

Peter woke coughing and hacking out water. He stood abruptly, the water level had risen to his upper thighs, there was only about two thirds of the tank left that weren’t filled with water. He pounded on the glass, his heart was racing, claustrophobia was kicking in and he knew that drowning was one of the worst feelings anyone could ever experience.

 

Rick and the other two men were watching him with sly smiles on their faces, he continued to hit the glass and began to yell frantically, his heart beated unsteadily in his throat.

 

“Please don’t do this, I’ll die! Please, please, I’m sorry for trying to attack you. Please, just don’t do this!” Their smiles grew wider and he felt tears welling in his eyes.

 

“Aw, don’t cry, you know it’ll only fill the tank up quicker,” they laughed audibly and one of them hit the tank wall, he jumped back in fright and the water sloshed up to his waist height. He wiped at his eyes furiously and tried to keep his balance even when his foot slipped in front of where the jet of water was coming from and he stumbled. Rick was laughing the hardest, he feigned wiping a tear of his own away and walked up to the glass, he held up his phone and Peter’s eyes widened.

“No! Don’t turn the cuffs o –” Rick’s finger jabbed at the screen and almost immediately his feet slammed together, the current of the water was far stronger than him with his legs forced against each other, and he slipped painfully. He twisted as he fell, and his back hit the bottom of the tank, the water level went over his head and he clawed his way back into an upright position. “St – stop,” he gasped, spitting out water as it dripped from his hair and down into his eyes, “stop, th – the water’s too high.”

 

The water was lapping at his chest now, stray drops were hitting his face as he thrashed against the glass. “Please!” His voice cracked, Rick turned his ankle cuffs off, but flicked two other buttons. Peter felt his mask tighten uncomfortably and he threw his hands up to tear it away, but the metal around his wrists were buzzing now, and there was something stopping him from touching his mask. It was as if there was a wall around his face, preventing the wrist cuffs from getting anywhere near his mask.

 

_Magnets repel from themselves_ , he remembered bitterly, giving a final attempt to use his strength only to have the magnets resist.

 

Peter sniffled and turned around in circles, looking for anything that could be a weak point in the tube’s design, but nothing was there, it was a solid piece of glass that stretched all around him and sealed the water in completely. He braced his arms against the sides of the tank and pulled himself up more, so his feet weren’t touching the bottom and the water was only at his chest, not his neck.

 

His terrified eyes caught the men’s and Peter could feel himself quivering in fear as they did nothing but stare at him, their faces relaxed with an entertained glaze over their eyes as if they weren’t about to drown a teenager. “You don’t have to do this…” he watched them shrug uninterestedly, having no care for his attempts to save himself. “You can turn this off now and let me go, nobody has to know,” Tony would, Tony always saved him, but the men didn’t need to know that. They scoffed at him and didn’t move in the slightest.

 

“How much oxygen do we have?”

 

“About forty-eight hours,” Peter watched Rick lift his hand and point to something above his head. He turned and looked up, something was attached to the top of the tank, he stuck to the glass and crawled up to pull at it.

 

When he jumped back down the water was up to his chin and he began to panic more, he pulled himself up as high as the tank would allow, so his wet and matted hair brushed against the top of it. He unfurled the thing in his hand and almost passed out from relief when he realised what it was.

 

Two thin black tubes that snaked up into a tiny pipe which fed them outside of the tank, they were big enough to attach to his mask, which he prayed would feed him oxygen when the water got too high. If he held the tubes from the top, he could guide them carefully into the opening in his mask, but if he got too close, the magnets repelled, and he had to start over. Eventually though, he managed to strap them on hurriedly and take an experimental breath.

 

Nothing happened.

 

He felt more tears welling despite the men’s taunting as he hit the glass and screamed through the mask.

 

“Please! Please! The mask, it – its not working! Please, shut the water off, the mask doesn’t give me any a – a – air… please, please, p – pl – please!”

 

Rick rolled his eyes and Peter thumped his head against the glass as he curled up against it, his chin tilting up, so his nose could catch the last few breaths of air before the water completely reached the top.

 

“Do me a favour and go switch the pipes when the tank’s filled so he can breathe.” Peter scrabbled at the glass weakly as he took a last lungful of air before he was completely submerged, and the tank had no more air left for him.

 

He watched through the glass as Sean crossed the room and pulled a cord from the box of water beside the tank. Peter felt as the water stopped, and he ignored the pounding in his skull as he kicked and punched at the glass without much momentum. He could see Rick watching Sean too, and he turned after a few agonising seconds as he tapped his mouth.

 

Peter doubted he could trust Rick, if he wanted to test the mask again to see if it was working, he would have to let out the breath he was currently holding, but if the man was lying, he would have just wasted the last breath he may ever take.

 

Rick seemed to realise Peter was thinking that, so he shrugged and crossed one foot over the other casually and leant against the wall. The teen squeezed his eyes shut against the water and tried not to sob, but eventually, he had to breathe.

 

The mask worked.

 

His eyes snapped open in the relief of it all as he felt bubbles from his nose rising and they brushed past his cheeks.

 

“Let’s start packing up evidence, I have no clue how long his body will survive in there.”

 

From inside the tank, Peter couldn’t even hear as the doors slammed shut.

 

\----

 

Tony hit the end voice recording button and waited as it loaded. He knew how smart Peter was, not just academically, but logically, and when it came to split second decisions that needed to be made as a hero.

 

If Peter knew he was being followed, the first thing he would have done was record it for evidence, and that’s why Tony was so terrified of hitting the play button when it popped up on the phone screen.

 

But he did it anyway.

 

Because it involved _Peter_.

 

_There was a rustle and Peter’s voice followed it._

_“It – it’s uh, it’s two forty-three right now. I had English last period, but we had a sub, she let us go to the study rooms, but they were full and I thought I’d save Happy the drive and just catch the subway to the tower tonight.”_

_The sound of the teen’s shoes scuffing as he walked along pavement came through the phone. “God, I wish I had just stayed in the study rooms… I should have just waited for Happy.” Peter’s voice was strained, he sounded upset and anxious about something, but whatever it was didn’t pick up in the recording._

_Another rustle as Peter presumably adjusted his bag straps. “I’m recording this, b – because there’s a car that’s been following me since I left the parking lot at school. My senses went off, but I couldn’t run, there were people around and if I can’t run at full speed, what’s the point in running? I wanted to be sure they were following me, I took four right turns, I – in a square, and they’re still behind me.” Peter cursed softly under his breath, the sound of a small pebble scrunching under his foot as he changed directions. “I just took a left, into an alley,” his breathing picked up and it sounded like he had started to run. “If I can get up to the roof before they get to the alley, they won’t ever see me sticking to the side of a building, and I won’t be late to the lab.”_

_Something rattled, and Peter made a small noise that sounded as if he had run past the dumpster too quickly and it caught on his bag. “No, no, no,” there was a ripping sound and then a muffled noise, the bag had hit the ground and Peter was halfway through retrieving it when the car pulled into the alley. “It’s blocking the entire alley, I can’t get back out that way, but I can’t climb the building either because they’ll see me, I’m kinda at a loss here, I don’t know what to do.” His breaths were coming in short puffs as the phone picked up the sound of three car doors slamming shut._

_“Hey kid,” the man’s voice was calm, eerily so, it clearly put Peter on edge as he answered._

_“Uh, y – yeah, you guys need something?” The footsteps grew closer, they sounded right by where Peter’s voice was. There was an awful moment of silence before he spoke again, “wh – what are you doing?” There was a clang, and someone must have thrown something, and Peter dodged it, because there was muffled swearing and then another thud, but this time it sounded like it hit its target._

_Peter cried out, his voice high with panic as footsteps scuffled against the ground as someone was thrown against the front of the dumpster. “Help! Get off me, hel –”_

_A heavy smack and then the sound of someone’s body, assumingly Peter’s, hitting the ground…_

_Followed by more silence._

_The bag rustled, it sounded like someone was picking it up._

_“What are we doing with this, because we aren’t taking it with us.” Whoever it was must have been talking about the bag because it continued to rustle as someone moved it around._

_“Yeah, kick it under the dumpster or something, don’t want any Stark tech with us. Kid’s probably decked out with trackers.” The rustling increased, and it muffled over a few lines of dialogue, but majority of the voices just seemed to be arguing over the best way to carry the clearly unconscious teen they had on their hands._

_“Just shove him in the trunk and be done with it,” the sounds of feet dragging along pavement were growing softer as the men drifted further away with Peter in their possession._

_“Nah, not worth the trouble of lifting him up, his head’s all kinds of bloodied up, there’s no way he’s waking up anytime soon. Put him in the backseat but lean him over so nobody sees him while we’re driving.”_

_“It’s an abandoned building in Brooklyn, nobody will care if they see him through the window, and I’m not helping you lift him into the trunk.”_

_“Fine, do whatever, I’ll drive and you two just… just sort it out.” The men had moved too far for their words to carry, but the sound of doors shutting was picked up by the phone along with the car engine starting up and pulling out of the alley.”_

_The rest of the audio was nothing but background noise up until Tony showed up._

 

\----

 

“Jesus, what the hell have you gotten yourself into Pete?” Tony muttered as he pawed through the rest of the bag and found nothing of significant use, he called Happy and listed off the location telling him to drop the bag off at the labs when he had collected it. Meanwhile, he busied himself with pinpointing every abandoned building in Brooklyn and sending scanner suits out to search for heat signatures that matched Peter’s readings.

 

“Sir, you currently have fourteen possible locations where Mr. Parker could potentially be located.” He scanned for the car with his own eyes as he skipped through majority of the buildings. Many of them were filled with teens that decided breaking and entering was a good idea, a few of the scanner bots had picked up homeless people who were roughly the same weight as Peter and only one building held a match for three adult males and one adolescence with an unnaturally low body temp.

 

“Yeah that one’s Peter F.R.I, send me the coordinates,” he knew it was the kid, his temperature readings were always unhealthily low for a regular human. But spiders are cold-blooded, so that was just the teen’s body. “And send me emergency services too.”

 

\----

 

He blew open the door and flew down two hallways before he walked into a room filled with three men, all of whom were disposing of snapped wood and holding blood smeared rags which they were using to clean.

 

Tony knew what they were doing. He’d hired too many companies to do those types of jobs for him and the Avengers after larger battles, but it made him sick to think that they could be doing it because of Peter.

 

They were disposing of evidence.

 

He was so furious that he didn’t even see red.

 

No, he saw nothing but the lingering memory of the selfie Peter had sent to him two nights ago on patrol, holding up the classic web shooter hand gesture as he snapped the picture of himself beside a webbed-up criminal.

 

_Hey Mr. Stark! Finished patrol for tonight, got the guy who’d been behind all those car robberies the past few weeks – see you this Tuesday at the lab afterschool._

 

God, that kid was annoyingly easy to get attached to.

 

“Where is he,” the three men looked at him with wide eyes and unbelieving expressions. The one holding the bloody rag sprinted for the door, Tony didn’t even move his feet as he sent a gauntlet covered fist into the side of his head, sending him sprawling to the floor, out cold. “Let’s try this again, huh? _Where is he?_ ”

 

The second man dropped the armful of wood he had been carrying and dashed into the room opposite Tony, he yelled something, and the final man scuffled after him, slipping over piles of broken tables and what looked like hot plates.

 

“Cut the tank! Cut the tank!”

 

Tony didn’t know or care what cut the tank meant, but from the way the men were running into the corner of the room and ripping cords out of a large gas tank, he knew it must have been somewhat important.

 

He walked into the room, about ready to pound the men until they took him to the kid.

 

But he didn’t need to, because the boy was right there.

 

Peter was suspended in the centre of a large tank which was filled with water, his long, dark eyelashes rested on his cheeks and his hair floated around him in a wavy, chocolate halo that looked like silk in the water. Through the mass of floating, curly tendrils of hair that Tony had run his hands through so many times, he could see that Peter’s head had been hit in multiple places, his cheek was bruised, and his lip was split. Tony choked on his own breath from inside the suit, the precious kid he had come to care for looked _dead._ The mechanic never wanted to see him looking like that.

 

He was floating peacefully, legs swaying in the water above the bottom of the tank and arms bent but drifting slightly, his whole body bobbing up and down slowly, rhythmically. Tony growled protectively as he stepped towards the tank, needing the boy out, needing to hold him and make sure he was okay.

 

But a small part of Tony screamed that he was already gone, his body starved of oxygen for what must have been hours now, judging by how wrinkled his hands were and the horrible copper tint that tinged the water around his visible wounds.

 

Despite his internal suffering, Tony had to turn and face the men who were yanking the last cord out of place on the large box. Something gurgles through the pipe that ran up and connected to the tank, and Tony eyed the teen in case anything changed.

 

Then something did.

 

Peter’s eyes snapped open as a burst of bubbles poured out of his nose. His hands cut through the water as he slapped at the mask that Tony was just noticing. He could hear Peter’s terrified screams through the mask as his oxygen supply was completely cut off, his head snapped around in the water until his darting eyes locked onto Tony.

 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter’s cry was muffled and warped from the water, he seemed to use the last of his air to call Tony’s name, but underneath the mask his face broke into a soft smile as he realised his mentor had come for him. The relief dissolved as quickly as it had come as his fists came up to pound against the glass desperately, bubbles rising from the mask.

 

He could see as the teen mouthed words and pleas for help as Tony watched in horror. He reeled back and slammed his iron clad fist against the glass, but it was so reinforced the blow did nothing. Peter was shaking his head and waving his wrists around, but Tony didn’t understand.

 

“Open the tank or I swear to god I’ll kill you where you stand,” he raised a charged repulsor at the two men and one of them put his hands in the air. From the corner of his eye he could still see Peter presenting his wrists to Tony pleadingly, as if there’s something about the cuffs that could be saving him instead of hurting him.

 

“He wants us to turn the magnets on,” one of the men said hesitantly, and Tony whirled to face him.

 

“Then do it,” he demands, watching as Peter began to claw at his throat and chest as if he could dig the air into his lungs. His lips were turning bluer and bluer as the men take their time fumbling with a phone screen. There was a buzzing noise and then a thud as Peter’s cuffs pulled him forward and slammed against the glass. Tony stepped to the side, so he could take the phone off the men and he winced when a screeching, high-pitched noise fills the room.

 

Peter screamed from where he was approaching unconsciousness inside the tank, and Tony realises that his cuffs had dragged against the glass to follow the direction he had stepped in. The sound must have been debilitating from inside the tank, especially with Peter’s enhanced hearing.

 

The cuffs were magnetised, his suit was metal. Peter’s cuffs were trying to get to the suit and the glass was the only thing stopping them. “Give me the phone,” he snapped, snatching the device away from the men.

 

He scanned the screen until he found a button labelled intensity and hit it multiple times until the buzzing grew to a climax. He turned toward the tank and stepped as close as possible, until the chest plate of his armour was touching the glass.

 

The magnets were beginning to put spiderweb cracks into the glass and he joined the impact by pounding on the outside roughly, being careful not to hit anywhere too close to Peter’s now completely unconscious form.

 

After what felt like an eternity, but was in reality only less than a minute, a full crack formed in the glass and water started to drip out. It was not nearly fast enough for Tony’s liking, so he stepped even closer to the crack and the combined force of the magnets shattered the entire tank in one go.

 

The cuffs clamped onto his chest and he caught Peter’s limp body with one arm before shutting off the cuffs and crushing the phone under his foot as the suit slid off him. He tore away the useless mask that was still attached too-tightly over the teen’s face.

 

“Come on kiddo, come on,” he laid Peter out flat on the floor and pressed an ear to his chest.

 

There was a heartbeat, but it was worryingly unsteady and n the weak side. 

 

He pressed down onto the boy’s chest and began to resuscitate him, frantically recalling all his first aid and CPR knowledge.

 

As soon as the first watery choke passed the teen’s lips, Tony rolled him onto his side and rubbed soothing circles over his back as he spewed up water. “Breathe, take a breath, there you go kid, there you go.” Once Peter’s coughing had somewhat subsided, Tony wrapped the small body into his arms and did nothing more than wave an arm out to the side and listen to the resultant noises of his empty suit taking down the last two men and dragging them into the other room with the first one who tried to run.

 

The authorities would be handling them, Peter had other things to deal with, like the fact that he was slowly gaining consciousness again as he was lifted onto a stretcher.

 

\----

 

Peter’s eyes scrunched before he opened them slowly. His heart felt like it was beating out of his chest and he couldn’t see anything except the edges of his vision flicking between red and blue light as hands poked and prodded at his body.

 

He was still in the tank, somehow the men were still able to reach him as one of them lowered the mask back onto his face.

 

Peter fought against it, he knew it didn’t work, they had pulled the cables out of the box and watched him as he suffocated.

 

\----

 

Tony was talking to an officer outside the doors of Peter’s ambulance when he heard the yelling. He jumped into the back and found a tray of medical supplies strewed across the floor and multiple nurses attempting to gently hold Peter’s arms to his side as he thrashed and wailed.

 

He was screaming but the words were mangled and unintelligible, even to Tony. The teen’s shrieks were cut off as he gurgled and coughed up more water over the side of his gurney.

 

Tony pushed past a nurse and kneeled by Peter’s head, pushing himself directly into the boy’s line of sight.

 

“Hey, Pete you gotta calm down, we’re trying to help, okay? You’re not in there anymore, take a breath.” Peter’s eyes were darting but as soon as Tony moved closer they locked onto his gaze, his screwed features softened, and he opened his mouth to speak before coughing once more.

 

“He needs a mask,” one of the nurses called as another pulled one from a separate tray which wasn’t lying across the floor of the ambulance.

 

“Hnnngh, n – no!” Peter gurgled again, and Tony grabbed his hand, squeezing tightly. The nurse held the mask above his head and the teen shook his head so violently that Tony had to put his hand underneath him in case he slammed it against the frame of the gurney.

 

The boy’s eyes widened as he looked at the mask and it finally clicked for Tony.

 

“Hey, Peter, Pete, c’mon you’re good, we’re good now. It’s just to help you breathe, it won’t be tight and nobody’s going to hurt you.” Peter continued to turn his face away from the mask each time the nurse tried to lower it. “I got it, I’ll do it, he’s scared.” The nurse was reluctant, but Tony plucked it from her hands and brushed the damp curls from Peter’s forehead. “Do me a favour kid, suck in for me,” he hesitated but ultimately did as Tony said.

 

His eyes fluttered shut when he felt the oxygen sailing into his lungs.

 

“You feel that kiddo? That’s you breathing, so if you can’t breathe when the mask’s on, we can take it off, okay?” Peter blinked and then nodded his head, keeping his eyes shut as Tony gently slipped the elastic band over his head and softly placed the mask over his mouth. “Breathe,” he said quietly, watching as the nurses wrapped Peter’s hands in light gauze.

 

The air reached his lungs and whooshed back out through his nose with such ease that Peter’s senses came flooding back into him like a gust of heavy wind.

 

He could hear the rhythmic beat of Tony’s heart just behind him, the tiny click as the ambulance lights changed between red and blue methodically, the hiss of the oxygen as it fed through the tube and into his mask.

 

“Hi Mr. Stark,” he croaked after a long time of quiet between the two.

 

“Hey kid,” Tony murmured, wiping stray droplets of water from Peter’s forehead.

 

“Still a lab day, right?” He smiled from under the mask, Tony returned it fondly.

 

“Yeah Pete, I’ll even order pizza.” The teen’s smile broke into a grin and he squeezed Tony’s hand where it was clutching his own.

 

“I love Tuesdays,” he whispered, knowing that his mentor had worked that out for himself.

 

“Course you do buddy,” his fingers tangled in Peter’s hair and he rubbed small circles into the soft curls.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you wanted to say anything or message me on tumblr, I'd love to get random prompts or ideas or just if anyone wants to ask questions or literally just say hi! (Tumblr is Agib-2002)
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I seriously love comments so much, you're all the best and I appreciate you!


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